Pope Francis, Cardinal Ricard, and a stern “Call to Action”

Historians will not want for points from which to date the breakdown of Pope Francis’s reign. Whether it was the appalling rehabilitation of disgraced Cardinal Godfried Danneels – who was on the loggia when Francis first greeted the faithful and was a papal appointee to the synod on the family, of all things – or the 2017 resignation of Marie Collins from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, or the Barros crisis in Chile, or l’Affaire Zanchetta, or the pope’s disastrous intervention in behalf of then-Fr. Mauro Inzoli, or some other act or omission, there is no dearth of options.

They may well point to the week of September 24, 2023, as the one in which the wheels came off the bus.

This was the week in which the pope’s own Commission for the Protection of Minors lambasted the Vatican for “tragically harmful deficiencies in the norms intended to punish abusers and hold accountable those whose duty is to address wrongdoing.”

If that line – among several others in the Call to Action from the Pontifical Commission – was not intended for Pope Francis himself, the timing of it nevertheless is powerfully suggestive.

The statement came on the same day the leading French news magazine La Croix reported that the disgraced former Archbishop of Bordeaux, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, has kept his red hat and his faculties to minister within the confines of the diocese where he resides, even though he admitted to molesting a fourteen-year-old girl.

La Croix reports that the Vatican imposed measures on Ricard sometime during the spring of 2023, according to the terms of which the confessed child molester will remain a cleric and a cardinal, though he may only say Mass privately unless he obtains permission to exercise public ministry from the bishop of the diocese where he resides.

At publication, the Vatican had yet to confirm the La Croix report. The Vatican only announced its investigation of Ricard after news of a police inquest became public late last year. French authorities eventually decided that accusations against Ricard were statute-barred, but Ricard himself admitted to “reprehensible” behavior. The Vatican has yet to disclose the results of its investigation.

At present, Ricard resides in the Diocese of Digne, a suffragan see of his native Marseilles where Pope Francis visited just last week. The bishop of Digne, Emmanuel Gobilliard, told La Croix that Ricard is not allowed to exercise any public ministry in his diocese or on his watch.

There is, however, a broad exception built into the sanctions.

“[I]f tomorrow he moves to another diocese and obtains the agreement of the bishop to return to service,” Gobilliard told La Croix, “I will not be able to prevent him because the exception provided for by the Roman restrictions,” such as they are, “applies to the diocese in which the cardinal is domiciled, not to the Church of Digne.”

Pope Francis has promised zero tolerance for abusers, whoever they are, whenever and wherever they committed their abuse. Whatever way you slice it, Pope Francis has shown greater-than-zero tolerance for Ricard’s confessed malfeasance.

“We hear and are disturbed by reports of the actions of individuals holding responsible offices within the Church,” the statement from the Commission says. Ricard is one of those men. He was archbishop of a major metropolitan see and a member of several powerful Roman dicasteries, including the one responsible for investigating and prosecuting sex crimes. Ricard has lost his seat on that dicastery – the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith – but La Croix International (the English-language edition of the French journal) reports that he has kept his seat on the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity and his voting rights in the next conclave.

Pope Francis even sent Ricard to investigate the Foyers de Charité in February of 2022, after it came out that one of the Foyers’ co-founders, André Marie Van Der Borght, was an abuser. Ricard held the post for only a few weeks, before resigning “for health reasons” in mid-March of that same year.

“We are long overdue in fixing the flaws in procedures that leave victims wounded and in the dark both during and after cases have been decided,” the Commission’s call to action stated, promising to continue studying “what is not working and to press for necessary changes so that all those affected by these atrocious crimes get access to truth, justice, and reparation.” It isn’t hard these days to spot what isn’t working.

Regardless of the Pontifical Commission’s specific intentions with the statement vis à vis Pope Francis, the point is sound and ought to make readers of it think not only of the Vatican’s decision to sit on the sanctions imposed on Ricard – such as they are – but also the silence of senior Churchmen in France, who only spoke up when journalists caught wind of the story and pressed them for answers.

“We also pledge to use our role to press other Church officials with responsibility to address these crimes to fulfil their mission effectively,” the Pontifical Commission’s statement also said, “to minimize the risk of further transgressions, and secure a respectful environment for all.” There is one Church official with responsibility – one – with power to address the crimes of men like Ricard.

“No-one should have to beg for justice in the Church,” the Commission stated.

With the sorely tried faithful, victims of abuse and coverup are indeed clamoring for justice. They are not clamoring for stronger or better paper protections, nor are they impatient for more meetings, more listening, more assurances that this will not happen again. They want real consequences for those who abuse people – not just minors – and for those who cover up or minimize their crimes. Begging hasn’t worked, in any case. If you doubt this, ask the victims of Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik.

“There can be little effective change in this area without the pastoral conversion of Church leaders,” the Commission said, right again. “As the College of Cardinals gathers in Consistory,” the call to action continued – a reference to the scheduled creation of twenty-one new cardinals this weekend in Rome, “we are encouraged by the Holy Father’s frequent reminder to those called to this special role that the blood they are called to pour out is their own and not that of those under their care.”

Just this past week, Pope Francis called the crisis of abuse and coverup in the Church “but a pale reflection of a sad reality that involves all humanity[.]” Francis was speaking to the CEPROME delegation of the Latin-American Council of the Centro de Investigación y Training for the Protection of Minors.

During his speech, Francis praised the head of his Commission for the Protection of Minors, Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley OFM Cap, as one of the Church’s “prophetic pastors, a cardinal, who was able to grasp a nettle such as Boston at that time.” O’Malley took the reins in Boston in 2003, as the crisis of abuse and coverup that had exploded in Boston the year before and had become a persistent worldwide scandal continued to unfold.

The Commission’s call to action, which consistently refers to abuse “in the Church” and focuses on the failures and misdeeds and malfeasance of churchmen – especially senior churchmen – stands out especially when seen in that light.

“We urge you,” the Commission wrote, addressing the Fathers of the Synod on Synodality that will open this coming week in Rome, “to work towards the day when our Church takes full account and full responsibility for the wrongs done to so many in its care.”

The Commission urged the Fathers “to work towards the day when all children are protected by appropriate safety policies and procedures, ones that are known and verified,” and, “to work towards the day when transparent and accessible systems of redress for wrongdoing by the Church’s ministers function well according to acceptable standards.”

“That day is yet to arrive,” the Commission noted, “and for many it seems a long way away.”

Quoting Pope Francis directly, the Commission reminded the Fathers that “Church leaders, who share a sense of shame for their failure to act, have suffered a loss of credibility, and our very ability to preach the Gospel has been damaged.” Church leaders, however, have not merely failed to act. Some of them have been part of the problem, and quite by their action.

Even at this late hour, Pope Francis could take the Responsibility, Accountability, Transparency to which he has repeatedly called the Church and too often honored in the breach and make it a genuine watchword instead of a grotesque buzzword. In order to do that, however, he would have to enforce his own laws consistently.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors may not have lost faith in Pope Francis, but their appeal to the worldwide college of bishops, couched as it is in unmistakably allusive terms evocative of Francis’s own and fairly dripping with irony and coming on the heels of such an egregious public disclosure, does not bespeak limitless confidence in his record of leadership or prospects for change from the top, not while he reigns.